


Simul Vicerimus

by Polly_Lynn



Series: Conquer [2]
Category: Castle
Genre: F/M, Family, Gen, Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-05-24
Updated: 2015-05-31
Packaged: 2018-03-31 23:35:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 6,554
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3997423
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Polly_Lynn/pseuds/Polly_Lynn
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>They spend it in pajamas and in nothing at all. Errant throws from the couch and fresh sheets that never quite make it on to the bed. They spend it with ice cream out if the carton and coffee and the crossword puzzle.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> A/N: This is a sequel to "Vicerus Solitudo," which was a post-Veritas (6x22) one-shot. This'll be a three shot.

She looks amazing. She’s up with the sun, and she looks _amazing_.

She’s talking into the phone when he shuffles from the bedroom. The sheets on her side are still warm, so she hasn’t been gone long, but she’s already in sharp, upright business mode. It's official, whatever it is, and his heart's inclined to sink. She turns at the creak of his step in the hall, though, and the most brilliant smile takes up residence on her face.

He thinks of all the moments she’s stopped him in his tracks. The first time he saw her and the perfect planes of her face and the shadowed beauty of her eyes didn’t go at all with the dull colors and straight lines of the work clothes she hid behind. Delicate fingers to her throat, smiling and thanking him as his mother fastened garnets around her neck. Behind the wheel of his Ferrari, and flashes of long, smooth leg beneath the hem of his dress shirt. A hundred images flick by, and like this, in his faded t-shirt and flannel pants that don’t quite reach her ankles, she outdoes them all.

He advances on her. Their eyes lock and the pace of her words takes a serious uptick. She all but hangs up on whoever it is, casting the phone aside as she falls back with him to the couch.

He tastes coffee on her tongue and salt on her skin. Caffeinated, but not showered, and that has promise.

“Good morning.” He kisses her hard and tangles his fingers in her hair, pressing her into the cushions with the weight of his own body.

“ _Good_ morning.” Her lashes flutter and she’s soft beneath them. She meets the message he’s sending with one of her own. A lazy kiss that says she’s going nowhere. “The best." 

* * *

 

They take the day. She takes the day with him, closing the laptop with an emphatic snick and flicking the switch on her phone to silent.

They spend it in pajamas and in nothing at all. Errant throws from the couch and fresh sheets that never quite make it on to the bed. They spend it with ice cream out of the carton and coffee and the crossword puzzle.

They lay the rest of the paper carefully aside. She’s the one to fold front page inside out, hiding the headline without a second glance. It's not avoidance. There's no menace and, thank _God_ , nothing looming anymore.

It's just the two of them, taking the day. They talk about the wedding. The honeymoon and nothing at all. They fill up the hours and the slide of the sun across the floor with idle and not-so-idle conversation. Ease and nearness and satisfaction and rest.

He thinks of Elena once. Just once, and she sees it. She knows even before he does and crashes into him. She brings the full force and presence of her body to bear against his, and there’s nothing beyond this day.

* * *

 

She throws herself headlong into normal the morning after that. Breakfast with her dad—early—and she’s on the phone even before, making calls and nailing down details. Washington mostly, but people here in the city, too. Things he knows she’ll stay on top of while this drags out to its conclusion. Because it's over, but of course it isn't.

She’s happy in it. Radiant, still, and comfortable in her skin. She’s everything she’s been since the day he met her—driven and quick of mind, no-nonsense, yet politic—she’s all of that and somehow more of each thing. Like she's settled into all the corners of herself left vacant since a night in January.

He’s the one trailing around in his robe, steeped in melancholy. She notes it. She frowns and runs her thumb over the furrows in his forehead. She paces, getting her things together while she nods and makes _I’m-listening_ noises, but keeps close. She brushes her palm down his back in passing and ducks under his arm when she’s all but ready, and the long, _nothing-new_ recitation on the other end of the phone is still in progress.

That’s the state of things when she brings her finger down on the screen and lets the phone clatter to the counter as she slides both arms around him. “You ok?”

“Supposed to be asking you that.” He spins her out to arm’s length and looks her up and down. “But I have my answer.” He slides his fingers to her wrist and tugs her close again. “You’re ready for this part?”

“Yeah.” She lets a breath out and her fingers curl tight into his shoulder. Her voice is steady though. “It’s . . . me and my dad. We’re a work in progress. And even after ten years . . . ”

“You still worry,” he finishes, fiddling with the band of her watch. The bottom drops out of his heart for her, little more than a girl, and twice orphaned.

“I still worry.” She leans against him. A quiet moment before her words stir the air again. “You didn’t answer me.”

“Answer?” He lifts his head from her shoulder. An awkward angle to look at her. “You’re . . . “ She raises his fingers to her lips. She nips at his knuckles like she can taste it. The thing she’s trying to describe. “Sad?” She studies him. “You’re not upset that I’m going alone . . .”

“No,” he says quickly. "You and your dad need . . .no, I get that." She doesn't look convinced. He tips her chin up a and meets her gaze with clear eyes. "I'm not upset. If you needed me there, I'd be there."

"And I'd ask if I did." She smiles and turns her lips to the heel of his hand.

"You'd ask," he echoes, and more than a little of whatever shadow this is lifts. _She'd ask._

"But you're still . . .?" She trails off, tugging at the dangling tie of his robe.

He shakes his head, turning her by the hips toward the door. She needs to go. "I'm nothing. Just a little . . . " he thinks about it. He smooths a hand down her side. Over the sleek lines of her blazer. "Requiem for pajamas." He shuffles behind her, moving them both across the room and it's pretty close to true. "Silly."

"Silly," she agrees, wheeling to face him in the doorway. She's trying for stern and missing by a lot. "Three weeks on a private island. You'll be sick of me in pajamas."

"Impossible." He kisses her even as he shoos her out the door. A mixed signal that has her laughing. "Pajamas are forbidden on the island."

* * *

 

He putters around her płace, taking his time getting ready. He's loved these hours with her. A quiet day and two nights, fiercely, joyfully together with no tragedy looming. Nothing more urgent than the need to be closer— _closer_ —pushing in on them.

He's loved them, but he's glad enough to head home. Fussy enough to want his own things around him and eager to see Alexis. His mother. Eager to have them roll their eyes as he spins them tall tales about being on the run. About the cramped room at the precinct and the absolute hush as they listened to the pop and hiss of Bracken's confession.

He's eager for all that and everything beyond. The wedding and life with this radiant Kate, more beautiful and more whole than he imagined possible.

But for all that, he drags his feet, from bathroom to bedroom to kitchen and back. He tidies things that don't need it. He lingers, reluctant still to leave here.

He's not sad, exactly. He told her the truth as he knows it right now. But there's something nagging that keeps him wandering through this space that's hers. A feeling like he's left something undone. Like _they_ have.

He stops short in front of the cheval mirror. He's been passing back and forth in front of it, doing his make-work packing, when something catches his eye. Something new stuck in the frame.

It's her. Johanna alone, and he doesn't remember this picture. She's never shown it to him, and he loves—in a heartsore kind of way—the idea of her doing this. Carefully unearthing and tucking it safe where she'll see it all the time.

She's smiling in it, and so like and unlike Kate that it's haunting. To see the years Kate has yet to come. Beauty she'll grow into. To think of the years Johanna will never have.

He _is_ sad, then. Profoundly, as he thinks of all the things this woman—this _good_ woman—woman will never see and know. All the ways Kate will have to do without the rest of her life, in joy and sorrow and everything in between.

He thinks of this loss stretching out before them, untouched and unremedied by justice and Bracken rotting wherever he is. Wherever he will be when days and weeks and months pass and she knows for certain there's no loophole he can wriggle through.

 

He thinks of Johanna and things left undone. 


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “A thought. He’s not sure it deserves the label yet, though it’s enough to stop his mother in her tracks on the way out the door. An idea that must have been pushing at the edges of his mind a while now. It must be that nagging something, because the pen is in his hand and she’s laying her things down on the counter to circle his wrist with uncharacteristically gentle fingers.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N: Chapter 2. Sorry for the delay. There was a dumb detail that was bothering me that I wanted to fix.

 

* * *

 

 

_“You’re still at the apartment?”_

 

He is. She's caught him out entirely. It’s too soon for her to be calling, isn’t it?  

 

“How could you possibly know that?” He glances at his watch, wincing as he realizes it’s not too soon at all. His dawdling has reached critical levels. 

 

_“I know what you sound like in your boxer shorts, Castle,”_ she says like she’s thinking the same thing. 

 

“Mmmm. And out of them.” He lifts the last of the couch cushions and finds the missing metro section wedged far back behind it. He smiles a little at the memory. The two of them sprawled together and careless. “Just tidying up.” 

 

_“More like snooping.”_ He can practically hear her rolling her eyes. _“Nothing to tidy.”_

 

“You wouldn’t say that if you knew where the third ice cream lid wound up.” He drifts into the office and peels a sticky spoon off a legal pad, its top sheet filled with her writing. “Besides . . . What do I have to snoop for?” He grins and runs a finger down the yellow page, all along the spine of cross-offs and circled items. ”I know what you sound like in my boxer shorts.” 

 

_“And out of them.”_ He listens to her soft laugh. He pictures her grinning, too, and hopes it’s not a cover. 

 

“How’d it go?” He keeps it light. Not quite prodding.  

 

_“Good.”_ It’s not entirely convincing, but she catches herself. Tries again and means it this time. _“Good in the end.”_ Her voice wavers a little, but there’s a steady enough smile underneath. “ _I forget he’s a lawyer sometimes.”_

 

“Cross-examination not as fun as interrogation?” He tucks the phone between shoulder and ear and drops the spoon into an errant coffee mug he finds on the floor, nestled up against the leg of the desk. He scans all the flat surfaces but everything does seem to be tidy twice over at this point.  

 

_“Not as much fun,”_ she agrees. _“I just . . . I wanted to spare him some of the details, you know?”_

 

“I know.” He thinks of the gash on her head. The reek of alcohol and the heart-stopping sight of her in a heap in that filthy hallway. The long, horrifying smear of blood on the wall above her. He sits down hard in the desk chair. “He’s your dad, though.” 

 

He's not quite sure what he means by it. Not quite sure he can explain what it’s like to pick at the scab of his own failings—real and imagined—when it comes to being a father. What drives him to _want_ every last detail and to hold himself accountable, whether it’s reasonable or not. 

 

_“He’s my dad,”_ she says, chewing on the thought a little. _“And he was her husband. He misses her.”_

“He always will.” He thinks of the photo tucked into the mirror. He thinks of Elena and fingers slipping from the edge of a rooftop. He thinks of a shot ringing out on a morning like this one. He thinks of Jim, quiet and stern. Made that way by time and loss. He wants to lay his head down with the weight of it. Sorrow and empathy and fear. He takes a breath instead. “ _You_ always will, Kate.” 

 

_“Yeah.”_ It’s heavy. That single word is heavy, but she rises up. He pictures the radiant smile she’s taken up lately, dimmed a little by a hard morning, but brilliant still. _"He told me a story."_ The words come almost shyly. Like a child carefully opening her palm to offer a peek at something precious. _"How he'd almost worked up the courage to ask her out and then walked in on the tail end of her telling a dirty joke. He got so flustered it set him back another month."_

 

He laughs with her, though he knows her heart must hurt for even that little time lost. His hurts right along with her, but they laugh together, and he leaves the quiet moment to run its course.

 

_"It was good in the end,_ " she says again. A reminder for her. Reassurance for him, and he hates himself a little for needing it. _"Good to know there are stories I haven't heard yet. And I don't . . ."_ Her voice doesn't quite break. "I don't have to miss her alone." 

 

"Not alone," he says back to her, the force of his belief pushed into it. All he can summon and all he'll carry as long as she needs him to. "Never alone.”

 

 

* * *

 

 

“It's a lovely thought, darling . . .” 

 

A thought. He’s not sure it deserves the label yet, though it’s enough to stop his mother in her tracks on the way out the door. An idea that must have been pushing at the edges of his mind a while now. It must be that nagging something, because the pen is in his hand and she’s laying her things down on the counter to circle his wrist with uncharacteristically gentle fingers. 

 

“It’s nothing.” He tugs his hand away. Curves an arm around a a legal pad of his own. “Just . . . it’s nothing.” 

 

Alexis catches him hard around the waist. She presses her cheek to his chest and tells him he’s sweet for thinking of it. He’s flipped to a fresh page twice by then, the others filled with not-quite-a-thought. It’s lovely. It’s sweet.  

 

_But_ . . . He gets that loud and clear from both of them. 

 

_But . . ._

 

She might hate the idea. 

 

It might be too soon. 

 

Too much with the wedding racing closer. 

 

It might be more than she can bear. 

 

_But . . ._

 

He hears them. He’s grateful for the ways they know her that he can’t. Grateful for the ways they know _him_ and his stubborn tendency to plow forward when he’s sure it’s a good thing he’s doing. The trouble that gets him in. He’s grateful for their clear heads and kind hands to stay his own. He’s grateful and weighs carefully everything they’re not saying. 

 

He can't tell her how to mourn. He wouldn't want to, and this is such particular grief. So deferred, and it's demanded so much from so many. He wouldn't dream of telling her what closure ought to look like or how she ought to cope. 

 

_But . . ._

 

He hears the timid joy in her voice. _He told me a story._ He sees her neat handwriting. Careful brackets around three names— _Diane Cavanaugh, Jennifer Stewart, Scott Murray_ —a duty as she sees it now, and one she hasn't yet steeled herself for. 

 

He hears and he sees and he _hurts_ for her. For her father and every name unfurling from three on a page. He hears, he sees, and he hurts, and the notion feels more right with every passing second. 

 

_But . . ._

 

* * *

 

 

"Hey." She's a backlit vision in the doorway. Bare feet and her hair pulled loose already. He didn't hear her come in. "You're caught up." She crosses the room swiftly to peer over his shoulder. 

 

"Catching up." He cracks the spine of the legal pad, flipping a handful of blank pages over and behind the half dozen he's filled. He spins the office chair and topples her in with him, a move they've long since mastered, though the base squeals and hisses in protest. "I kind of dawdled the morning away," he confesses in a stage whisper.

 

"So I heard." She calls up an easy grin. "Snooping turn up anything good?"

 

His mouth opens in a quick denial. He bites it back, though. He hears the reservation in his mother's voice. Sees it on Alexis's face. He wants to tell her about this. He wants to _ask,_ and he wants it—whether it happens or not, whether she hates the idea or not—to be an untainted thing between them. He tips his head to the side, noncommittal, and brushes her hair back from her face. He studies her in familiar light. 

 

"The precinct was good." It’s not a question. He knows it's true, though it's her turn to raise a shoulder. 

 

"Good," she says. "Paperwork. And stopping every ten seconds so someone else could shake my hand."

 

"They're proud of you." He kisses one cheek, then the other. “Glad for you."

 

"I know. And it's . . . It's not like the . . . thrill . . . " She wrinkles her nose at the word and fixes him with a look like its his job to find another one. He supposes it is. "It's not like that's wearing off, but I just want to do my job."

 

He knows. They both know that's what brought her in with only a scant day of rest. Though there's not a single soul who knows her who'd think it, she needs the world to know it's the work that matters to her. And she needs _herself_ to know that Detective Kate Beckett, NYPD, endures. That she has purpose and a place in life beyond her mother’s case. He settles her cheek against his shoulder and lets the silence speak to that.

 

“Are you ready to tell me?” She brings her lips close to his ear. “About the snooping?” 

 

He expected to be nervous. He expected to stumble over his own words, plagued by doubt. But he slides his arms to either side of her hips and reaches past her for the legal pad and it seems like the right thing. To offer it up and have her do with it what she will. He flips to the first page.She snatches at it, playful, but he stills her, hiding his words against their two bodies. He thumbs her cheekbone and waits for her to settle. To look at him. 

 

“I haven’t done anything. I promise.” He kisses her. “And I won’t unless you’re . . .” 

 

He’s caught out. Uncertain for the first time how he sees this. How he wants _her_ to see it, when it’s hardly even an idea. When it’s just something that seems to be missing. Something that isn’t about Bracken and work and all the things that could still go wrong. 

 

“Castle.” She kisses him back, impatient. _Sneaky._ She slides the pad from his fingers and rests it on her propped up knee, tipping it toward the light. “Cavanaugh.” The first name is hardly a breath. “Stewart . . . the other victims.” 

 

“Survivors.” He captures the hand moving busily down the page. He stills it and holds on to her. “Diane Cavanaugh’s sons have kids of their own.” He moves their hands together now. Down the page and over to the next. “Scott Murray had a daughter. She’s 19 now.” 

 

“Jennifer Stewart’s husband never remarried . . .” She curls her fingers in his and smudges her knuckles down the margin. A ladder of names that must be unfamiliar to her. 

 

“You’ve talked to him.” He tightens the arm around her waist, caught by the agony. “You’ve talked to all of them. Before?”  

 

“After Coonan.” She nods, her voice low but steady. “After we knew it wasn’t— _they_ weren’t— just random.” It’s a hard memory and he feels the sudden weight of the thousand little tragedies even _he_ doesn’t know about this. About the last fifteen years. “But I just . . . next of kin.” She flips page after page, coming to a list that trails off. Her own entrance. “Castle, there are dozens . . .” 

 

“Just Google.” He slides his fingers to her wrist. To the heat of her climbing pulse. “Just . . . the handful of articles from back in the day and some amateur web snooping.” 

 

“Amateur.” That pulls a laugh from her. An eye roll that’s more reassuring than anything she can say. 

 

“Semi-professional,” he says with a sniff. She knocks her head against his. “They knew your mom. And she knew them. Maybe not well, but they knew each other.” 

 

“They knew each other.” She says it like she’s trying the words out. She hasn’t thought of it before. As a daughter, not as a cop. As a survivor of this terrible thing that’s touched so many. 

 

“I know it’s a lot.” He takes the pad from her gently. He leans them forward to set it aside and curls his arm around her thighs, settling her further into his body. “And there’s the wedding. And you may _never_ want to do anything with this . . .”  

 

“Outside.” She cuts him off. Fingers over his mouth. “A park. Washington Heights . . .” She stops short, like she’s as startled by the sudden enthusiasm as he is. “A . . . picnic or something. Nothing stuffy or formal or . . . We can do that?” 

 

He smacks a kiss against her palm and peels it away from his lips. “We can do that. We can do whatever you want.” 

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N: Chapter 3 hopefully up Friday. Thanks for reading.


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "She's right, of course. The next day dawns, brilliant and beautiful. Sixty-two climbing to a high of seventy-one."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N: Third and final chapter of this second post-Veritas (6 x 22) story).

 

 

 

The weather is awful the few days leading up. Just _awful,_ and he's never felt so _betrayed._ By his city. By nature.

"By the _universe_." He moans to the storm-rattled window. They've been tuning him out for at least a day. His mother. Alexis.

"There's a tent." Kate slips up behind him, giving him a pinch as she wraps her arms around his middle and presses her cheek to his shoulder blade.

"And when the water is six feet high and rising?" It's sullen. He knows it, but the words stream out. An unstoppable tide of nerves.

"That's what Plan B is for. Indoors." That comes with another pinch. Harder this time, and a little more impatient.

"But it's . . ." He sighs and knocks his forehead against the glass. "Outside. You wanted a picnic."

"Gonna get it." She tugs at his belt loops until he shuffles around to face her. She taps his chin up with her knuckles. "Outside. Sunny and seventy degrees."

She's cool and absolutely assured. _Cheeky._

"Oh, yeah?" He grumbles.

He blustering. Unpleasant, but part of him _wants_ to cling to this bleak mood. It's better, somehow, than see-sawing insides. Fatalism and high drama. It's better to be sure _everything_ is ruined than to have to worry about the ten times ten times ten things that _might_ be ruined because he hasn't thought of something. He has the terrifying thought that he's never understood his mother quite so well. It makes him snappish.

"So I can cancel the tent and tell the mayor to release the indoor venue to the German line dancers?"

"Why not?" She shrugs—actually _shrugs_ —wholly unconcerned.

"Why _not?_ " The sky splits open on cue, the whole world a dazzling blue-black after image as thunder cracks overhead. Close enough that he feels his ribs vibrate right along with every piece of glass in the place.

She laughs, though. She blows a kiss to the end-of-the-world storm raging as the clock tips from _today_ into _tomorrow._

"Sunny. Seventy." She herds him toward the bedroom, all shuffling feet and bumping hips. "I _know,_ Castle," she says, though he hasn't even opened his mouth to ask yet, "because the universe is _not_ going to mess with me on this."

He puts on the brakes. He _is_ opening his mouth this time. To say the universe is a jerk, not to be trusted, or to wonder about Plan C. Something stupid, and his mouth is already open. But her hands are on her hips, and he's never seen anything so _fierce_.

"It wouldn't dare."

 

* * *

 

She's right, of course. The next day dawns, brilliant and beautiful. Sixty-two climbing to a high of seventy-one.

They're all up to see it. Even his mother, though she supervises from behind her giant mug of French press as the rest of them repack and reorganize things that don't need it. Alexis chatters and Kate bumps his body with her own. Knees and elbows and wandering hands until he's caught some of her smile and the easy, fluttering excitement that lights her up.

The bell buzzes. Kate pops to her feet though she's only just sunk to the floor to sip her cooling coffee.

"My dad." She rolls her eyes.

Castle looks at his watch. "It's early."

"My _dad_ ," she says again as she pulls open the door.

"My Katie."

It's dry—dry is a Jim Beckett specialty—but the man in the hallway is almost unrecognizable at first. A change in him dramatic enough that Castle is up and moving for a closer look. It's profound. The weight he no longer carries. Jim Beckett doesn't look young. He's too many hard years gone for that. But he smiles at Kate, and it's the quiet, steady light, of sun captured on still water.

"Jim." Castle holds a hand out, unsure what else to say. He's surprised to find Kate melting away, not surprised that he's clearly missed some signal passing between then two of them. She just brushes his hip with her fingers in passing. Half-teasing reassurance because he's always been a little afraid of Jim Beckett.

He still is. It's a different man who takes his offered hand in both his own. One who's warmer and more open, as if he can risk letting life and family and _anything_ matter again. But he's no less exacting. No less her _dad,_ and Castle is still a little afraid. His own gaze falls on Alexis and he supposes that's how it ought to be.

"Thank you, Rick." Jim says. His voice quiet, as always. Full of feeling, and that's new. Amplified, at least. "Thank you. For Johanna. And for standing by my daughter."

"My life's work."

Castle smiles. It's a reflex. Flip and a little self deprecating, but a bright peal of laughter draws his gaze and Jim's. Kate rocks back, cross-legged on the floor and clapping her hands. His mother is orating, one wrist circling, bracelets jangling for emphasis. Alexis blushes and shakes her head.

The sun streams in the windows, all beauty and light, and he means it. He just means it.

 

* * *

 

They're on the early side, but a handful of people are there at the park already. Three kids of about four or five peering warily at one another through a forest of adult legs. It's a tense forty-five seconds or so.

Castle watches the ritual, rapt, as he climbs the sloping path a few steps behind Kate and Alexis. By the time they reach the top—the edge of ridiculously huge, entirely unnecessary tent—the ice is broken. They're chasing each other, gabbling at top speed and top volume, and making up the rules for some newly invented game as they go along.

Kate skips around to face him, swapping the handle of the rolling cooler she's tugging from one fist to the other. She doesn't miss a step as she tips her head back toward them, a bright streak of stripes and polka dots and flashing, light-up sneakers.

"See, Castle?" She sticks her tongue out at him. "Success already."

And it is. The littlest of them, a dark-haired girl, stands with hands on her hips just outside the thick, drooping curtain of a willow and calls out that it's the dungeon. The other two charge right in, shaking branches and hollering for freedom.

The adults are smiling hard as the knot 's nothing awkward or formal as they all trade handshakes and make introductions across coolers and a long table that's already filling up with bright bowls and foil-covered dishes.

Castle blinks as a woman with a baby on one hip throws an arm around his neck and thanks him. "This is wonderful. _Wonderful_ ," she says and moves on.

He catches the words _Jennifer's sister_ and _fourteen_ as she and the baby weave in and out of the growing crowd. He sees Kate, startled, though her own arms open as the baby reaches out for her. He hears her laugh, a little nervous, as the baby kicks and lets out a delighted shriek when Kate raises her high.

He gets pulled away, then. Alexis saying something in his ear he doesn't quite catch. He follows her, hesitating, as she joins a girl about her age in shaking out camp chairs in the shadiest corner of the space to set up a kind of pavilion. Alexis gives him a look and shoots a significant glance toward an older woman standing by and leaning heavily on a cane.

He advances with his hand out and finds she's actually blushing. "Lina Jervis. I wasn't invited," she stammers. "My daughter had a commitment. Annette . . . " She holds a shaking hand out toward the girl working side by side with Alexis. "She was too shy to come alone . . . we brought her brother . . . my grandson . . ."

She scans the blur of children weaving in and out of tent poles and coolers and knots of people talking easily. Their numbers have grown, and it's impossible to pick out any particular one.

"And I'm so glad you did," he says smoothly, though it's a gut punch as he realizes who she is. That she must have been Scott Murray's mother-in-law. He hands her into a seat and takes one nearby. He turns helplessly toward the girl again—Annette—and sees the squareness of her father's jaw, softened in her. He tries to trace a line from this day to a grainy photo of a 4-year-old girl in a bright flower-print dress. It's heartbreaking. For just a minute, _everything_ is heartbreaking.

"She's at John Jay now," Lina says, her unease forgotten as her voice brims with pride. "I think she wants to be your Nikki Heat."

"Well, that's . . . " He feels a blush creeping up the back of his neck. It's the kind of thing people say to him all the time, but the context is strange and none of the usual ripostes seems right. He scans the crowd for Kate. The thing that anchors him. He smiles to see _her_ smiling. Her shoulders loose and a bright red cup dangling from her fingers. He turns back to Lina, sorrow and disquiet gone. "We'll just have to make sure she gets to talk to the real deal."

 

* * *

 

He means to make that happen, and it does somewhere along the way. Entirely without his intervention, it happens.  He has a running list of things he needs to make sure of, but the day has a mind of its own. He ends up playing a villain in some hilariously incoherent play the kids stage. He suspects his mother of collusion, but she denies everything, even when he catches her shaking down guests for scarves and dark glasses and sun hats to stock the prop and costume table.

The small army of staff he's hired keeps the grill hot and the coolers stocked. They smile affably and flip burgers side by side when the Cavanaugh brothers budge in to lend a hand. The long table groans with the impossible amount of food that appears. There's music all of a sudden and he doesn't remember doing that. He hasn't, he realizes, but someone has a more than passable set of speakers and an iPod dock, and it's just right.

He catches Kate around the waist. She catches him. They bend their heads together.

"Great," she murmurs before he can even ask. "Everything, Castle. This is just . . . everything."

He rests his cheek against her hair, breathing in sun and grill smoke and something sweeter. It's a welcome, quiet moment for them both, but the music changes. A jazz standard he knows, though he can't put his finger on the title with the jumble of names and faces he's struggling to hold on to.

"Castle." She lifts her head from his shoulder, his name catching in her throat. He follows her gaze to her father, standing in shadow with his head hanging. "This . . . they danced to this at their wedding."

He pulls her close, kissing her cheek. "Go," he whispers, spinning her away and letting his fingers slip from hers. "Go on."

She does, hesitating a little. Glancing over her shoulder at him and uncertain. But Jim's face lights up. He sets his palm against Kate's hip like they do this every day. He glides her in and out of the growing group of dancers, mouthing the words.

_I wanna give this world to you_

_You make me understand_

_These foolish little dreams I'm dreaming_

"You're in the way, darling." His mother's voice startles him as she steps into his arms.

It's true, he realizes. He's been standing there, smack in the middle of the impromptu dance floor, just staring.

"Sorry," he says, a little dazed as he tries to remember how his feet should move.

"No, Richard." She angles his chin to make him look at her. "Today, you have nothing to be sorry for."

* * *

 

 

The rest of the day goes just like that. They pass each other, smiling, their palms just brushing as she's pulled one way and he another. He keeps meaning to check in—to make sure she's holding up—but she is. She is every time they catch one another's fingers and make introductions.

He meets a few people for the first time half a dozen times, and he knows she does, too, but everyone laughs and handshakes lean toward hugs as the sun climbs high and starts to slip down the sky over the Hudson.

The kids find sprinklers somewhere down the hill. They race back, shivering and soaked. He's rooting through beach bags for towels when he hears a voice, low and tentative.

"Rick?" He straightens and turns, suddenly face to face with Evelyn Montgomery. Mary drifts behind her mother, the slightly sullen look on the sixteen-year-old's face a classic mask for nerves and awkwardness. Evelyn reaches a hand behind her, tugging the girl forward. "I'm sorry we're so late. Rebecca couldn't . . . " she trails off as something over his shoulder catches her eye.

"You made it." Kate's voice is quiet, an echo of Evelyn's. "I'm so . . ."

The words are lost as the distance closes between them. Their arms are tight around each other for a long moment. They both pull back with bright eyes. Kate rests a hand on Rebecca's shoulder and says something he can't hear. The girl softens a fraction and, like magic, Alexis is there, Annette by her side, and a few of the bigger kids tagging along. Evelyn hardly has time to nod before the lot of them are off, chattering about food and music and boats on the river.

Castle lingers at Kate's elbow as Evelyn makes their excuses. " . . . prom last night," she's saying and Kate's eyes go wide as she does the math. "Rebecca has an internship. She's staying on campus this summer . . ."

This was her idea. Something he'd winced not to have thought of when he picked up the list and saw the names penciled in her careful handwriting. It makes his ribs ache now— _still_ —as he remembers her words, echoing through the hangar.

_Sir. I forgive you. I_ forgive _you!_

And she did. She had forgiven him, absolutely in that moment, but it's so much more complicated than that. _This_ is so much more complicated.

The three of them feel that, standing at the edge of a brilliant, early summer day. Castle presses an uncertain palm to the small of Kate's back. She flicks a glance at him, hardly a beat before her arm winds tight— _tight_ —around his waist, keeping him there, and that's all he needed to know.

"Evelyn . . . Roy . . ." Her head bows. He feels the breath stuttering down her ribs and presses his hip closer to hers. She looks up, heartened. "I couldn't have done any of this without him."

"Tell me." The older woman reaches out a hand. "Tell me, Kate."

* * *

 

 

They leave Evelyn with a loaded up plate, with Jim and his mother on either side of her, the three of them laughing about God knows what. Mary is still off with Alexis et al. He hears them talking colleges and things probably not meant for parental ears, so he moves swiftly on. 

"She knows . . . more than I thought."

Kate leans heavy against him. He's managed to steal her for another dance. Something they both need right now.

He makes a noncommittal sound of agreement, but it doesn't fool her. She presses.

"You're not surprised."

"Evelyn is . . . he couldn't have kept it from her." He strokes his fingers down her spine, proof against anything like accusation. "Not entirely."

"He would've . . ." Her voice is thick, her fingers a little unkind as they curl into his shoulder. "He would have wanted to protect her."

"And she wouldn't have wanted him to carry something like that alone." He kisses her, a little stubbornness in it. "They were married, Kate. Thirty years."

He grins against her cheek, picturing it. Picturing _them_ , just like this, on that distant day, and the word somehow carries them through it.

"Married." She's grinning, too. Dropping his hand to loop both her arms around his neck. Tipping her head back for a kiss. " _Married_."

* * *

 

 

The sun is heavy on the water. The time comes when even the kids are close to worn out, though they spread damp beach towels and pass around a flashlight, telling ghost stories.

He and Kate lean together in someone's two-seater camp chair. The chairs around them empty and fill. Conversations they're part of, others that leave them on the fringes as people mingle easily. They pass photos. Actual glossy, sharp-cornered paper and phones, too. They tell new stories and old. Talking shop and sports and the weather. Everyday things and things he can't imagine any of them sharing outside the confines of this.

"Breaking up." She lets her head fall back and murmurs against his jaw.

"Soon, I think." He pulls back to an awkward angle and kisses the blue stain at the corner of her mouth. "Last chance sno-cone?"

" _No_." She gives his ribs and emphatic jab. "I could _not_ eat one more thing."

"Not even those chocolate peanut butter things the Cavanaughs brought?"

"I hate you." Her eyes close and her hands curl defensively over her middle. She cracks an eye open. "Are there any left?"

"I can see."

He starts to push up, but she tugs at him. Fingers in a belt loop and a fistful of his shirt. She pulls him back to her.

"No, stay," she says softly, settling him by her side again. Her gaze drifts out over the water. Up to the underbelly of the bridge in the distance, and his follows. "I don't need a thing. Stay with me."

 

 

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N: And: Scene. Thanks for reading and sorry for the slight delay. "First Aid" snuck in ahead of this.

**Author's Note:**

> A/N: Thanks for reading. Next two chapters up in the next couple of days.


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